A Very European Christmas

We spent Christmas in Budapest.  I had anticipated it being a lot harder to be away from home than it was.  (Although, I don't plan on making it a habit to be away for the holidays.) I was so lucky to be with one of my good friends from home and a couple of new friends I have made in Switzerland.

We arrived in Budapest on the 23rd.  After dinner and a little walking around, we headed to bed for an early morning at the thermal baths! It was the perfect Christmas Eve. We got to the baths and it was sunny and 50 degrees out (this is a good thing). A few hours in a warm pool followed by a massage and some more pool time, all for the low cost of $30! It was absolutely fabulous!

Our Castle filled with piles of water!

After exploring the city some more we discovered another highlight of Budapest. This delicious treat caught our attention when there was an extremely long line at the stand. We couldn't not try it! 

Now in case you can't tell what that is let me try to explain. It is this absolutely delicious piece of hot doughy heaven covered in cinnamon and sugar.  Sound amazing right? It was! 

Then we headed back for a short and very unplanned nap. We then headed to check out the church and see the cityscape at night.  Then we headed back to our apartment to make our impromtu Christmas Eve dinner. Since none of us are competent in Hungarian, we bought cream cheese instead of ricotta cheese.  We were also left with very few pans! We are creative people though so we made a successful lasagna-esq dinner followed by several bottles of wine 

and night of playing cards! 

Christmas day was relaxing as well. We ventured out for a walk around the city. It didn't last too long because it was hailing and windy...and all around unpleasant to be outside. We did get a chance to check out the Parliament building (the third largest). We then made another dinner and spent the evening relaxing, watching Love Actually, and Skyping with our families. It was sooo great to be able to see my family on Christmas! Technology saved the day again! Stephen (my little brother) set a place for me at the table on Christmas Eve which meant the world to me! I am glad that I was with some great friends for the holidays, but nothing beats having an amazing family around you! 

On our way out we went to Memento Park, which is an accumulation of old Communist statues. We took it upon ourselves to pose as each statue was posing.  

Shelly reenacting the statue

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Budapest! 

I love and miss you all! 

Andrew and the Capital

My friend Andrew from college arrived on Saturday around noon and it has been absolutely glorious to see him and bring him into my Swiss life! It is so great to be reminded of how true friendships don't change or feel awkward no matter how long it has been since you have seen each other. A year and half after seeing Andrew and we haven't skipped a beat since we met up at the airport!

We wandered around Zurich on Saturday and then he got to meet some of my friends that night. Sunday we took a day trip to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. As usual, it is always nice to get out of Zurich to explore a new place.  I enjoyed Bern a lot! It is another gorgeous and old Swiss city.  We went to the Kunsthaus Museum which I genuinely enjoyed.  There was a great mix of genres of art.  Bern translates to bear so they have four bears that live in an enclosure by the river.

It is still weird to not be home for the holidays. As much as I am surrounded by Christmas, it doesn't feel like Christmas because I am so far away from everything I am used to.  I got my family's gifts in the mail the other day and opened them while Skyping with my parents last night. I have also begun listening to Christmas music on overload to make up for the lack of baking and decorating! I am super excited for my out of the ordinary epic Christmas adventure!

One-Third Done

There is a time period after you move somewhere that it is new an exciting.  You are exploring a new place (and by exploring..I mean constantly getting lost).  When I arrived in Zurich, it was surreal and extremely overwhelming.  I was actually left to fend for myself and was living with a stranger for the first week.  I was jet-lagged and disoriented.  I actually remember thinking that I would never get a grip on this city, between the buses, trams, trains, and walking.

Four months later, it is no longer this exciting new place, but it has become my everyday life. I actually live in Switzerland.  I have a pretty regular schedule.  I have made a great group of friends who I adore (awww...).  I have explored a few countries and most importantly, I have figured out the city.  I know how to get places and can occasionally even give people directions.  I have cafes and bars that I love and I am still constantly discovering new places to go.

While I feel like I understand Zurich, I have isolated myself in an international bubble.  I am still trying to find the culture.  My family isn't Swiss and I don't have any Swiss friends. I am a little embarrassed to say that I have barely spoken to any Swiss people.  This was the opposite of what I thought would happen.  This isn't just my experience either, nearly all of my friends or people I have met seem to interact with the seemingly mysterious (or indifferent) Swiss people.  Maybe this will change in the next 8 months, but it doesn't seem likely.

(insert your own transitional sentence here...)

We are in the middle of the holiday season. The lights are up around the city, the Christmas Markets have arrived, and we even have a tree decorated in crystals!

It is glorious!

However, this is also bitter sweet.  I am so incredibly lucky and grateful for everything I have done and will get to do while I am here, but it doesn't make being away from family and friends for the holidays any easier.

The sweet part is what I am doing over Christmas and New Year's Eve.  I am so lucky to have a great group to travel to Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Germany with! It is going to be a holiday break for the books! I am sooo lucky to have a friend from college coming to visit and spend the next 3 weeks with me, in addition to a couple of other aupairs!

So while it is going to be a different kind of Christmas, I am so excited for it! I am amazed that I have reached my four month mark! Time is flying by and there is still so much to do before August rolls around.

Good-bye Thanksgiving, Hello Christmas

My Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful.  While it was more like a massive dinner party, it had a 27 pound turkey, mashed potatoes, greens beans, and apple pie so I couldn't have asked for anything more being 9,000 miles away from home.  It was a fun experience because, in addition to the Americans, there were people from all over the world.  I know we had Brazil, Italy, India, Iran, Denmark, South Africa, and several other countries represented.

Our turkey chef!

Our turkey carver!

It was great to share our traditions with people from all over the world! Someone had never had gravy before and another had never had an apple pie! I think everyone had a really great time! It was a unique Thanksgiving! I was able to talk to the family in San Diego for awhile when I got back to my dungeon which made it a successful day of giving thanks!

My apple pie was a success =) 

When I left the apartment where dinner was, I walked outside and it was snowing. As I made my way to Bahnhofstrasse (the main street in Zurich) where they had their Christmas lighting ceremony earlier that night. So I really did walk out of Thanksgiving into Christmas. It was such a crazy experience to see such an obvious visual of the holidays changing.

(Sorry about those pictures, they don't capture how pretty the street actually looked but I will work on getting something better)

Then I woke up in the next morning to this in our backyard... 

So winter is here and Christmas is just around the corner! It is time to embrace winter and what it has to offer!